Way back in 2008, the economy was in a bad place. Like Taylor Swift after a bad breakup. Major industries like automotive and retail were left in shambles and had to figure out a way forward. Brent Matthews and CJ Ogle were right in the thick of this challenging time as they were tasked with marketing and advertising The Bed Store, a Knoxville TN based mattress retail chain. Business had been less than stellar and as their marketing and brand managers they came to a difficult and staggering realization. Everything thing needed to change.

So, after much research and prayer, they set out to craft a strategy to somehow build the business in the face of a challenging economy. With the blessing and guidance of the company’s owner Roger Cunningham. Citizen Advertising was born. They knew they had to calculate a way to do more with less and take what the market gave them. This instilled a very adaptive approach to advertising and marketing. An approach that still serves Citizen well all these years later.

Building campaign’s with local traditional television, radio, print, and other media outlets (before digital advertising was a viable option) and learning the craft of creating compelling commercials Brent and CJ began to see the results of their efforts. Over the next three years, the business quintupled. This success is not solely related to the advertising but the strategy and effort along with a great team internally helped the company reach heights never before seen. This gave Brent and CJ the confidence to expand and take on other clients.

In 2015, They added to the team by bringing in Doug Coffin and Nate Croft along with veteran ad man Vern Lindsey. The growth of the team was rocket fuel to Citizen. At this time Citizen added multiple clients from retail, automotive, tourism, industrial, and many more. This meant that more help was needed from a creative and strategy standpoint to continue to execute at a high level. Citizen has been continuously expanding the team since 2016 to what is now a team of 15 creative and advertising professionals that are just as passionate as the founders about selling our client’s wares. One thing that hasn’t changed is Citizen’s relentless focus on helping small to medium-sized businesses adapt to every market challenge and opportunity to win the day.